Sydney in July has already stepped into winter. It is cold now, even more for a boy’s heart. His name is Angus, a postgraduate student of the business school of the University of Sydney. The results of the examination of buss5000(critical thinking in business) has already been published two weeks ago and nearly 40 percent of students failed in this course. Angus heard that those students wrote a joint letter to the Chinese consulate in Sydney asking for help. They formed a group to argued with school leaders and reportedly has already made some progresses.

Angus, a postgraduate student of Business School of the University of Sydney. Photo:Eva HE

Delayed until now, Angus has just checked his marks online, finding that he failed the examination of buss5000. The ringtone comes from his mobile phone, the message shows on the screen that his already booked airplane tickets must be picked up three hours earlier before the boarding time tomorrow. He is going to back home and prepare for a short internship in China. But now, he feels like his mission in life become void of any meaning. He slides to power off the phone, thinking carefully what he is going to do next.

Abercrombie Business School (ABS Building) in distance looks exceptionally dazzling, Angus feels unfair that he paid expensive tuition fees which is nearly 4500 AU dollars per course, but now,

Inner decoration of the ABS Building. Photo: Eva HE

he must pay additional 4500 AU dollars for retaking this course. “School needs huge money to build more beautiful buildings, so tutors failed me on purpose”, he thinks to himself subconsciously. Just then, three of his classmates look distressed coming over to him, asking him about the test results. Angus shakes his head slowly: “I failed buss5000…” “So did us.” “So what exactly happened this time? I heard that so many Chinese international students failed this semester. Is that all about double pass that we must pass both final and weekly test?” said Chris angrily.

The failing rate of buss5000 is nearly 40 percent this semester, some students think there was something wrong with the marks of the exam paper and the school staff discriminated against international students. While the truth is that undergraduate business school students have the similar course just like buss5000 and their failing rates are much higher than 40 percent. For example, accounting course, failed more than 40 percent students last year, why didn’t they make troubles and wrote a joint letter to the Chinese consulate in Sydney asking for help?

“I don’t know.” Angus curled his lip and said: “One of our elder classmates, the president of the Chinese Union of Students Jiang called me earlier this afternoon, he claims that we cannot deny the fact that in recent years, school have started to enlarge the recruitment and building, it makes sense that students think failing us could be a good money-making idea. But we should keep calm rather than going to extreme. There may be some problems with the teaching methods of the tutors and some unreasonable elements about curriculum and tests. However, as a international student who passed the buss5000 in this semester, he said that we must take seriously about our English skills.”

There are so many Chinese international students studying in business school and some of them think buss5000 is not a big deal. They can pass the exam without paying efforts. So may be tutors want to correct their perception on this course. Some of the students noticed that lots of students failed buss5000 so they just want to get involved and protect themselves from responsibilities.

The back photo of Jennifer who wants her full-face photo being kept secret. Photo: Eva HE.

“That is true.” Chris added. “Yesterday I had a coffee with Jennifer, the international relations director of the business society, she claimed that she had seen some feedback comments that Chinese students posted on the official college website. Their English cannot make them pass the regular test actually. Some of them even look for essay-writing services to pass a certain course. Those students who make troubles are selfish, they made the news bigger and push staffs of the Chinese Consulate to negotiate with school leaders about this issue. They blamed all the faults to school and ruined school’s reputation.”

The photo of essay-writing service taken from the doors of the ladies room in the ABS Building. Photo: Eva HE

Angus turns on his phone, surfing on some social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Sina Weibo to see the public opinions about this issue in and abroad Australia.

There are hot debates in the WeChat Group that students who failed the buss5000 constituted. Some students claimed that the tutors are irresponsible and have prejudice on those Chinese students. But Angus is rational that his tutor, Tasbir, always take particular care of our Chinese students. If you ask her questions, she would answer it with patience. Most Chinese students who blamed tutors never ask tutors questions during consulting time when they get confused about the class, of course. They think there English sucks so they are afraid of asking questions.

Angus rethinks this issue that he may consider himself of hard-working students while his friend YUI have commented that he was not diligent at all. When he studied in fisher library, he always playing his mobile phone to surf the internet, just like most students sitting around him. His learning efficiency should be improved. Beside, the class is not really difficult that he should take every class seriously and do some pre-exam tests that tutors provided before examination. He remembers an article published online recently, which reported the comments of this failing issue said by Professor John Shields, the Vice President of business school of the University of Sydney for some details about this failure rate several days ago. Professor John stated that students should notice that not all of the students who failed buss5000 are Chinese international students, there are also local students who failed the test as well as Chinese international students who got HD in this test. The English skills of those Chinese international students maybe unable to cover all the classes. IELTS test results could not totally rank your English skills. It just like you passing the driving test with full marks while it doesn’t mean that you are good at driving in real life. English should be exercised and improved in daily life.

“But does it mean that there are something wrong with the sources of international students of our university?” Angus looks at Chris.

Australia’s international education sector has undergone a rapid growth over the past decade. As statistic shows, the amounts of the cost of international students peaking at 19.2 billion AU dollars in 2015, an increase of 2.2 billion AU dollars in 2014, which strengthened the dominant position of international education industries in Australia. Australian Federal Ministry of Education claimed that there are nearly 650 thousand Chinese international students studying in Australia in 2015 and China became the world’s largest source for international students at Australian universities.

“It doesn’t really matter at all. We students should learn to accept that results are not always the ones we expected. We should find the reasons of our own.” Angus talks to himself.

The photos of advertisements of Chinese tutorials taken from the doors of the ladies room in the ABS Building. Photo: Eva HE

What should be mentioned is the fact that Chinese international student representatives put forwarded some advices on the symposium held in 2015 and school leaders accepted the advices with an open mind, which reflected that school leaders had determination to enhance their teaching quality and efficiency. School leaders also stated the fact that there are so many tutorial classes that Chinese people opened outside school, which was of low efficiency, so there would be additional tutorials opened freely every week in the next semester for students to ask tutors questions within school.

Nearly 40 percent of students failed the Buss5000 examination (critical thinking in business course) in the University of Sydney in 2015, which made a stir both in Australia and China. In my opinion, I believe this business subject targets Chinese students on purpose.

More than 300 of the Chinese international students who failed the exam jointly signed to argue with school leaders of the University of Sydney to fight for justice that they claimed the school did so on purpose for the funds to build more buildings. And the education industrialization in Australia was again being raised to the public that some people think the university in Australian are not that good. Allowing international students coming here to study is just the method that they could earn some money.

In order to explore the background of this issue, I intend to google on the internet to find out the background of this issue and search some related reports and articles on some social website to dig out some information as my background reference. I have heard that the rating of the test of buss5000 had changed that students need to “double pass” the exam. So I should ask some students who is learning buss5000 in this semester to figure out what double pass means exactly and how would it affect students’ passing rate. I would log into some social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Sina Weibo to see the public opinions in and abroad Australia and analyze it in a neutral position.

Furthermore,I would also arrange a time to interview professors of buss5000 to get to know why so many Chinese international students failed in this exam, is that all about the wrong learning methods and poor English skills or just the reason that the school wants to earn some money through these huge make-up examination fees because the New South Wales government provide little fund for school’s research funds. In order to present what really happened, I plan to interview several Chinese international students who failed in this class, asking them to show me their transcript last year to compare their different marks.In addition, finding some data to compare the failure rate of the same course in different universities in Australia as well as the failure rate between Chinese students and local students would be good choices. Finally, I plan to interview several Chinese students who didn’t fail as well as international students who came from other countries, asking them about what their thinkings and opinions of this issue.

To be fair, I would suggest the interviewees hold a neutral position during the interview, they should tell the truth rather than make up some misleading information with their personal bias and emotions.

Also noteworthy is the name of the target online publication, which would be The Sydney Morning Herald, for it has the section of Education Breaking News & Headlines. Another online publication I prefer to choose is Honi Soit, which is an Australian student newspaper, incorporating a mixture of humorous and serious opinion articles with chatty writing styles. The target audience of this feature article are international students, especially those Chinese international students who concern about their school work and want to be treated fairly in school lives. This feature article would also raise schools’ awareness of advancing the quality of teaching and increasing teachers’ responsibility as well as pushing the government to pay more attention on education issues in Australia.